Mackey – Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry Vol. 1

THE NIHILISTS 231Tsar, in his blind fury, seemed bent on his destruction-andit was nearer than he anticipated . The Executive Committeedetermined that now the emperor must die . Fortysevenvolunteers presented themselves to make the' attempton his life. On the i3th March 1881, the Tsar was assassinated. Returning from a military review near St . Petersburg,a bomb was thrown by Ryssakoff, which exploded inthe rear of the carriage, injuring several soldiers . Theemperor alighted, and a second bomb, thrown with greaterprecision, by Ignatius Grinevizki, exploded and shatteredboth the legs of the emperor below the knees, tore open thelower part of his body, and drove one of his eyes out of itssocket . Within one hour and a half the Tsar was dead .Grinevizki was seized, but he was himself so injured that hedied shortly after his arrest . He was the son of a smallfarmer, who with great difficulty for some time managed tokeep his family, consisting of eleven persons, but eventuallyfell into difficulties ; his farm was sold, and he became insane .Ignatius, in the greatest poverty, attended several schools .In 1875 he was sent, as the best scholar of his class, to theTechnological Institution at St. Petersburg ; there he joinedthe students' unions for Radical purposes, in which, by hisactivity and address, he soon acquired great influence . In1879 he would have been satisfied with a moderate constitution,but seeing that there was no prospect of even thatsmall boon, he joined the Terrorists, working with and forthem till the great work of his life was assigned to him . TheNihilists ascribe to him the fame of a Brutus, of Harmodius,and Aristogeiton ! Return we to the other actors in thishistoric tragedy .The signal for throwing the bombs had been given byJessy Helfmann and Sophia Perovskaia; who were on thewatch, waving their handkerchiefs . She and Helfmann werearrested, as also some of the other conspirators, Kibalcie,Micailoff, and Ryssakoff, and, with the exception of Helfmann,who, being four months pregnant, was reprieved,were hanged on the 15th April following . . All the prisonersdied like heroes ; Perovskaia even retained the colour in hercheeks to the last . But the execution was a " butchery ."(See Kolnische Zeitung and London Times of 16th April1881 .)623 . The Mine in Garden Street .-On the 25th March the'revolutionary correspondence found on the prisoners led tothe discovery of the conspirators' quarters in TelejewskaiaStreet, where Timothy Michailoff was arrested . A copy of